HOPE:
Hope 1: The response from the Radio 4, Farming Today program has been close to overwhelming. It took me most of last week to respond to the tsunami of mails, which poured into my inbox. My conclusion from these - there is a new army of people with 2 - 60 acres re-naturing. I spoke to some of them - they had bought their land within the last 2 / 3 years. I asked them why and universally the response was - ‘I am doing this because our Govt & legislators aren’t leading on this - they are woefully behind’. A type of direction action then!
If you missed the Farming Today program you have 4 handfuls of days left…..BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 02/01/21 Farming Today This Week: Rewilding to create a private nature reserve
Where do I go with this next…I have (almost) written the UWNR Re-Naturing Manual, which will be the accompanying text for Re-Naturing workshops to be run at the land as soon as we can. Many of these lovely people will attend and I will have the opportunity to share in greater depth why UWNR has worked.
Hope 2: Within the next year, 2 of the wonderful young people (Harry & Alex) who are associated with UWNR will do assignments and dissertations using the nature reserve as the focus of their research and study. This is a hugely exciting development. When we started this project, back in 2014, I imagined such things would happen and they now are - YES!
Hope 3: I am writing a piece for Barn Owl Conservation describing how the barn owl barn at UWNR serves as a valuable winter habitat for the resident pair. The hope is that more people will give over a portion of a barn, a garage, a garden shed and provide valuable indoor habitat for this under-pressure species. I have camera trap evidence showing that they use the barn on nights when weather makes outdoor hunting impossible. Recently, there was an image of a tawny in the barn - 2 species of nocturnal raptor using the barn.
Harry & his Dad have done pellet analysis for me using fresh pellets. This enables us to ascertain what species the barn owls have been recently predating. There are two species of small mammals which predominated; field vole and wood mouse. Interestingly only one brown rat jawbone was found - I would have expected more.
Love the pics of their work:
AWE:
Awe 1: Last Wednesday, I was standing on the bank of the (new) woodland pond and I detected rustling in the leaf litter on the opposite side. I stood stock still - a weasel poked up, sniffed the air and had a rapid-fire look around. She (cant stand calling sentient animals it) then worked her way to the pond edge and swan dived into the water!! To be clear here, I am talking a chest out, arms splayed, toes pointed dive – 10 points for sure. She then swam at pace across the pond (like a micro otter), mounted the bank and dashed by me. Bloody crazy. Imagine the water temp! Why?
I have seen weasels at UWNR many times and regularly find scat. But this experience was off the scale.
Then another turn in this story… I mailed my old commercial fishing skipper, who lives in Ireland and is a keen naturalist, about this. His reply completely blew me away. ‘I was steaming into Glandore harbour one day - summer, late afternoon I think. I met a stoat happily swimming east to west; about 350 metres done; 150 to go. Just measured it off GMaps’. (Glandore is in West Cork). WOW!
Awe 2: The sky table is now playing host to Buzzards, Jays and Ravens. Given the harsh weather of the past 2 weeks it feels right to supplement their diets. Harry & I first deployed the sky table about a month ago and even on day one the Buzzards were aware of it and doing reconnaissance, overhead flights. Their awareness now is at another level. As I walk to the table from the barn, distinctive large white bucket in hand, they are directly above me wheeling and calling. They know - here comes the bloke with the meat, so line up - dinner time. In that short space of time they have learnt these associations.
Awe 3: I love the soundscape at UWNR especially at night and often when the weather is fine, I will sit and listen. The roe deer barking and the tawny calling are among the best. But our landscape is sound-poor compared to this: BBC Radio 4 - Soundstage, The River Crossing
DESPAIR: Oh god, there are times when what we do to our planet weighs so bloody heavily. Last Friday, late evening (get the timing) and under the cover of the pandemic, the Government issued this licence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neonicotinoid-product-as-seed-treatment-for-sugar-beet-emergency-authorisation-application
It is hard to overstate how bad this is. The evidence about Neonics is unequivocal. The EU ban the use of this chemical…join the dots. I have read widely on this subject. Years ago I found a Dutch research paper, which summarized the detrimental impact Neonics have on aquatic species. I have been trying to re-find it, but cant....this Japanese research is similar:
How the world’s most widely used insecticide led to a fishery collapse (nationalgeographic.com)
Fills me with despair....this is the DDT of our age.
Rachel Carson, wonder what you would make of us (49 years on)?